Tax amnesty covers roughly 70,000 taxpayers

By Azernews

By Sara Israfilbayova

Tax debts of 69,329 taxpayers in the amount of 728 million manats were unconditionally written off in the first quarter of 2017 in accordance with the bill "On regulation of tax debts of taxpayers on January 1, 2017".

The Taxes Ministry reported that the volume of tax debt to the state budget of Azerbaijan decreased by 393 million manats in the first quarter of 2017.

The total volume of debt of 39.880 taxpayers was 1.5 billion manats as of January 1, 2017, but the figure decreased to 1 billion manats [of 41.352 taxpayers] as of April 1, the ministry said.

In the first quarter of the year, 35.542 taxpayers had new debts amounting to 251 million manats, and 34.070 taxpayers had forgiven debts equaled to 644 million manats.

Financial sanctions in the amount of 13.761 million manats were written off for 4.428 taxpayers in exchange for the payments amounting to 8 million manats made in January-March 2017.

The bill "On regulation of tax debts of taxpayers on January 1, 2017" was developed on the initiative of the president and approved by the parliament.

The bill covered two types of tax debts: the first article of the bill envisages cancellation of all interest accrued for non-payment of debt, and the second article - writing-off of the financial sanctions.

Under the document, in case of repayment of one third of the financial sanctions during January 2017, remaining 70 percent would be written off. In case of repayment of half of tax sanctions during January-February, other 50 percent would be written off, while if 70 percent of financial sanctions during repaid in January-March, remaining 30 percent would be written off.